Cypress Grove Read Free Page A

afternoon as I reported for the 3-11, word surfaced from the Captain. Come see him.
    “I think it’s a mistake, Turner,” he said. “You’re not ready for it. But you’re bumped to detective.”
    I’d been a cop, what, two or three months at that point? Most of the men I worked with were ten, twenty years older, and most of them had packed their lives into the work. Little wonder they’d been reluctant to accept me, and only began to do so, haltingly, now.
    Did I for even a moment recognize this as a repeat of what happened in the service? No. (But how could I not have?) There I’d passed from basic training to special forces in a matter of weeks, as in one of those TV shows where events stumble over one another trying to get past. I’m a quick study, have a quirky mind that gets on to things instantly. While others are still floundering and doing belly flops, I’m walking around, looking good—but my understanding never extends far beneath the surface.
    At that time, remember, I had little enough training to speak of, and almost no experience. And the fact that Nabors and I had violated procedure was something I just couldn’t get my head around. That went on every moment of every shift of every day, sure. No one did things by the book. You cut corners, jury-rigged, improvised, faked it, got by. But few of those shortcuts ended up with a fatal shooting and a seasoned officer going down. I kept ticking off the mistakes in my head.
    We were supposed to stay together at all times. We should both have responded.
    When I began to suspect that something had gone badly south, I’d started in without calling for backup.
    I’d failed to follow my senior partner’s orders.
    Then, failing also to identify myself or fire a warning shot (which back then, before Garner v. Tennessee, remained policy), I’d shot a man dead.
    Interestingly enough, few questions got asked outside my own head, and none of this ever came up for any sort of review. But right after gypsies and sailors, cops are the most superstitious folk alive, and while I was newly on the list of good guys, looked up to in some weird, abstract fashion, the whole thing stayed weird: no one wanted to partner with me.
    So for a time, in direct violation of department policy, I rode by myself in the best cars the department had to offer. Ranked detective, I still spent most of my shift on routine calls.
    What happened next I’m still not clear on, but somewhere (arbitrarily, I assume, from my experience with bureaucracies pre and post) a decision was made, and I started finding myself beside guys no one else would put up with. Likes attracting? Or maybe they were there as department brass’s last, desperate effort to shake them out of the tree. We’re talking rookies too dumb for Gilligan’s island here, lawmen Andy wouldn’t let have one bullet, bullies fresh off the schoolyard, lumbering southern gentlemen who stood when ladies and elders entered the room but had screenings of Shane and The Ox-Bow Incident playing continuously in their heads.
    Then one morning I looked to the right, or so it seemed, and Gardner was sitting there. We’d just come off an unwarranted noise call, I’d let him handle it, and the boy’d done good.
    What you got to do is put on their lives, way you do a robe or an old shirt, he told me. You stand outside looking, no way you can see in, no way they’re gonna trust you.
    That what they teach you these days?
    Right after the choke hold, he said.
    We’d been riding together three or four months by then. Why was he any different from the others? I’m not sure he was. Could have been me: maybe I’d just come around to the point where I was ready to start forging connections again. Or maybe it was just that the son of a bitch wouldn’t give up. I’d done everything I could do to ignore him, frustrate him, demean him, and he just sat there sipping coffee and smiling, asking what I wanted for lunch. While I was busily turning into